May, 1897. British real estate clerk
Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to conduct the purchase of a
property in Whitby for Count Dracula. However, Dracula is a vampire and
allows Jonathan to be claimed by his three brides. Five weeks later Dr
Van Helsing is called to Whitby to tend Jonathan’s fiancée Mina Murray
and then Lucy Westenra as they fall inexplicably ill. Tracing the source
of the illness brings Van Helsing up against Dracula. Dracula believes
Lucy to be the reincarnation of his love and is determined to make her
immortally his.

COMMENTARY:

This was the fifth major attempt to film Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Up to that point there had been the uncredited silent classic Nosferatu (1922); followed by Dracula (1931), the Universal version with Bela Lugosi; Dracula/The Horror of Dracula (1958), the Hammer version with Christopher Lee; and the Jess Franco version Count Dracula (1970) also with Christopher Lee. This version was made by Dan Curtis who had emerged as producer of the popular tv series Dark Shadows (1966-71) and the cult Night Stalker tv movies. Curtis debuted as director with the Dark Shadows cinematic spinoffs, House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971). Curtis then embarked upon a series of classic horror stories remade for tv – including Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1968), Frankenstein (1973), The Picture of Dorian Grey (1973), The Turn of the Screw (1974) and this. Dracula was released cinematically outside of America, the only of Dan Curtis’s tv movies to do so.

The script comes from respected genre novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson, who has been responsible for works like The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), Duel (1971), What Dreams May Come (1998), most of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations and the oft-filmed novel I Am Legend
(1954). Richard Matheson treats the Bram Stoker story with the greatest
degree of faithfulness that any adaptation had up to that point. The
Transylvanian scenes are played almost entirely as Bram Stoker wrote
them – all that is missing is the scene of Dracula climbing down the
castle wall. The climactic pursuit back to Transylvania tracking Dracula
via the hypnotized Lucy is also effectively introduced – the first film
to do so. Richard Matheson does trim some aspects of the book –
Renfield and the lunatic asylum have been dropped outright. So are the
other vampire hunters, excepting for Arthur Holmwood.

The additions that Matheson makes are
intriguing – this was the first version to directly equate Dracula with
also being Vlad the Impaler. (Although the end note that pops up to
inform the audience that Vlad was an alchemist and sorcerer and “... so
powerful a man was he that it was claimed he succeeded in overcoming
even physical death. To this day it has yet to be disproven” is absolute
tosh). The attempts to create sympathy for Dracula during the
flashbacks is also interesting, but these fail to work due to the
briefness of the scenes and also because of the casting of Jack Palance.
The climactic killing of Dracula, which owes much to the Hammer The Horror of Dracula,
with Van Helsing ripping open the blinds of the library to pin Dracula
in beams of light before he is impaled against an overturned table by a
giant spear, is a highly effective improvement over the book’s climax.

At the same time, the film is also no good.
It is certainly a well produced film – the production values seem like
those of a feature film rather than a tv movie. What is noticeable is
the naturalism of the production. Both the Universal and Hammer
adaptations took place in artificial worlds that were almost entirely
shot on soundstages. This version has a look of authenticity – its
photography is naturalistic, the costumes in period without being
ostentatious or florid, and the film appears to have been shot on the
grounds of authentic castles and estates. It looks for all the world
looks like a BBC costume drama. On the other hand, while such an
approach adds an enormous amount in the way of a plain straightforward
adaptation of the story, it is resolutely un-fantastic in nature. All
the supernatural elements have been pared away and those that remain are
played as low key and unremarkable as possible. Here Dan Curtis makes
the mistake of directing the film in terms of physical action – Dracula
is not a supernatural presence, he merely sweeps into rooms and throws
people about. Scenes that should have great impact – the attack of the
brides, the blood-drinking – and so on are directed without flair or
style and are almost nil in impact.

Even worse is the casting. It is certainly
difficult to think of an actor less suited to the role of Dracula than
Jack Palance – maybe Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger? Jack
Palance is unable to shake the image of the old warhorse of countless
westerns and makes his way through the role with characteristic
asthmatic wheeze. The performance is appalling – the scenes where
Palance tries to demonstrate anger by throwing things around in a room
are so lacking in threat, so lacking in anything except hammy melodrama,
that the entire plausibility of the film collapses. The rest of the
casting is not much better. Nigel Davenport’s Van Helsing lacks any
sense of intellectual prowess or commanding power. He is no more than a
plodding gentleman. There is a laughable scene that demonstrates just
how wimpy this Van Helsing characterization is – Davenport waves a cross
at Dracula, who snarls “Throw it away”... whereupon Davenport does with
only a slightly peeved “All right.”

1 comment:

I once gave a party at the house in which I lived, years ago in London, and a good friend of mine asked if he could bring one of *his* friends, who turned out to be Fiona Lewis. I asked her at one point in the evening what she was working on and she replied "Dracula - " here she paused " - with Jack Palance". She changed the subject rather quickly because, as my friend later informed me, she was not having a happy time on the set - Palance had bitten her - really *bitten* her during one of their scenes together.

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